I thought Bleach was great for the first season. It's just that it was never really meant to last very long, and it shows. Coupled with a huge amount of filler, it ends up going downhill pretty quickly in my eyes. Naruto went downhill quick, too, but I think Naruto just wasn't the type of show I wanted to watch. It's mostly arena battling, not unlike Bleach, rather than being an Action adventure show like One Piece or Dragon Ball, where they go around and see lots of different locals.

In the interest of catching up on some "must see" stuff I'm finally going to watch steins gate after being rather dissapointed in chaos: head.... I say "must see" because I "must see" how freakin' convoluted and non-sensical this ends up being.... but hey, who knows... maybe I'll be presently surprised....

Don't even compare Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate. Yes they're both based on visual novels but the same company, but the animes are worlds apart. You will not be disappointed by Steins;Gate.

Unfortunately Steins;Gate may have been a one-hit wonder. I've been watching Robotics;Note and it's pretty blah, though not as offensively bad as Chaos;Head at least.

I also enjoyed Bleach for the first couple seasons, but I long ago gave up on it. It got so convoluted and dragged out. But I don't know how much just the early episodes will help you with the game, Klyde. I guess you'll be introduced to the basic characters, but Bleach isn't a game that sticks to one simple premise. It kind of jumps all over the place...and not in a good way.

Mahou Sensei negima is awesome, but only in the manga format. They tried to animate many times and it sucked every single time (The OVAs are good though)

Oh man, I'll agree with that. I actually watched the original anime first and thought it was awful. A friend of mine tried to convince me to read the manga and I was like, "you've got to be kidding me". I refused to even touch it. But I did eventually start reading the manga...years later. I was very impressed. Despite the absurd premise and loads of fanservice, Negima is one of the best epic fantasy mangas I've ever read.

PURE BREED SHONEN:Digimon Adventure, Digimon Tamers or Digimon Savers would be a good place to start.

HIP SHONEN:Eureka Seven - although I personally never liked the story.

INTRIGUE / ADVENTURE:Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

SERIOUS / DEADLY:Jyu Oh Sei - which I mentioned in the unknown animes

COMEDY:School Rumble (if you consider Harima the main character... I know I did)

ALL AGE:Katekyou Hitman Reborn

SURE VALUES:GundamsEvangelionTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Mahou Sensei negima is awesome, but only in the manga format. They tried to animate many times and it sucked every single time (The OVAs are good though)

Wow...none of those are shows I really think of when I think of Shounen. Well, except for Full Metal Alchemist I guess. I know shounen just means "for boys", but a lot of people talk about Action/adventure, tournament fighter type stuff that appears in Shounen Jump.

I tried to list things that weren't Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail or some other well known big name.

I also didn't list those tournament fighters because most of them aren't really anything special.Who here wants to watch Beyblade?

I guess there's Shaman King that's a tournament shonen fighter, right? I never watched it myself... so can't say.

There's Shaman King, Blue Exorsist, Soul Eater (which I swear he said he saw some of), JoJo's, Hitman Reborn (which you listed. I blanked on it earlier), Hunter X Hunter (2011), Dragon Ball (not Z. A lot of people never saw the original, which is way different from Z), Gintama (more of a comedy I guess, but it still sorta counts), Beelzebud, Fist of the North Star, Rurouni Kenshin, and Yu Yu Hakusho. All of Which I enjoyed much more than Naruto, Bleach, Inuyasha, and Fairy Tail. Those four are bottom of the barrel in my opinion. Not Better than One Piece, though. That show is the shiz, man (I dunno if Klyde would be into it, since it tends to be very silly a lot of the time, though).

In addition there's The Law of Ueki, The Flames of Recca, Buso Renkin, Elemental Gelade, Mar, and Rave Master, but I either never saw them (but heard they were mediocre) or saw them a long time ago, and don't remember anything about them (besides being mediocre). (Mediocre's still watchable, BTW, and I have met one person per show who quite enjoyed each of them, though they are in the minority)

Oh yeah, and there's Toriko, Saiyuki, D.Gray Man, Fushugi Yuugi, Get-Backers, and Samurai Deeper Kyo, which I know nothing about, besides one or two people per show like them. Guess that means I got some more to try.

Generally speaking, any manga published in a shounen magazine is classified as "shounen". That's really where the distinction comes from, since different magazines are targeting different demographics. Some shounen stuff can be fairly mature and well-written, like Death Note for instance. Heck, Death Note was published in Jump of all things.

The distinction gets a little blurred in anime since television stations don't have the same sharp divide in demographics.

Yu Yu Hakusho was a really good fighting shounen, at least as long as the nostaligia goggles aren't working their magic on me . The spirit detective concept is kind of wasted as there's no spirit detective work going on, but it otherwise delivers. And I'll give it credit as someone who hates tournament arcs, it did one and it was great. Which is good, because that's like half the show.

Naruto really isn't bad early on. Good supporting cast and it tends to actually protect most of them instead of having them lose constantly to make the main character look good saving the day. And if someone does get jobbed out it's usually another supporting cast member to save them. Get's worst and worst as it goes on.

Rurouni Kenshin is a samurai show that pretty much follows the fighting shounen formula. It also has a excellent OVA called Trust and Betrayal, which does NOT follow that formula and is a more serious samurai movie. If you don't watch the series at least check that out, but if you DO watch the series watch it first. I've found the OVA turns people off to the show if they've watched it first since they're expecting something much different.

One Piece is one of my favorite things. Expect it to start out mediocre, but it reverses the fighting shounen trend and only gets better and better as it goes on. It even eventually stops being a fighting shounen and going more the adventure route. The anime is cheap though and uses lots of stall tactics. You could say that about all fighting shows and you wouldn't be wrong, but it takes it to another level. I don't remember if it was as bad early on so by all means give it a try, but be ready to transition to the manga.

I'm about 380 episodes into the anime of One Piece. I'm not exactly sure what stall tactics you mean, though, but I haven't read the manga, and I watch a lot of shounen, so I'm probably too used to it to notice.

Otherwise I agree with everything you said, Raze, except I've rewatched some of Yu Yu Hakusho recently, and still think it's great despite doing some things I normally don't like in Anime.

Oh man, I'll agree with that. I actually watched the original anime first and thought it was awful. A friend of mine tried to convince me to read the manga and I was like, "you've got to be kidding me". I refused to even touch it. But I did eventually start reading the manga...years later. I was very impressed. Despite the absurd premise and loads of fanservice, Negima is one of the best epic fantasy mangas I've ever read.

I'll agree that Negima is a great series. Would have been pretty much perfect had the final arc not been pretty clearly cut out leaving a giant freaking hole in the series. :( Saddest part is that my understanding is that the arc was cut because of a diisagreement between the author and publisher regarding IP rights(could be wrong on that though).

@Bytor - I must ask, how do you come upon these shows? I thought I knew of a lot of stuff, yet you consistantly bring up shows I honestly can't recall ever hearing of. And it's not like Master Keaton or Saikano are stuff that never made it over here, either.